Kota: In a major success against gold smuggling, a team of CID Intelligence and Crime Branch of Railway Protection Force has seized gold worth more than Rs 6 crore and about Rs 26 lakh worth in cash from the Tejas Express train in Kota district of Rajasthan, official sources said on Friday. The joint team of the CID Intelligence and Crime Branch of Railway Protection Force has also arrested three accused gold smugglers in the case even as the Income Tax Department has also been informed about the case.
An official said that the arrest was made late Thursday night. An official said that all three accused are residents of Mumbai, the capital of Maharashtra. RPF Intelligence Inspector Virendra Kumar said that they had received intelligence inputs that a large quantity of gold would be transported through train number 12954 Nizamuddin-Mumbai Tejas Rajdhani Express.
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Following the inputs, the RPF special team from Delhi itself had boarded this train to conduct a search operation in the entire train, Kumar said. He said that the raiding team noticed a few suspicious passengers in the train. On the way, as soon as the train landed at Kota Junction at 10:30 pm on Thursday night, the team of CID Intelligence and Crime Branch jointly started the search operation inside the train, Kumar said.
He said that the team searched the bags of suspicious passengers upon which 10.7 kg of gold and cash of Rs 500 denominations amounting to Rs 26 lakh was found in the bag. Most of the gold was in the form of jewellery. Apart from this, chains and biscuits were also found with the accused. Kumar said that the RPF team took into custody the three passengers Dilip Bhai, son of Devsi, Pritesh Kumar Mutha son of Tarachand and Jitendra Bhanwar.
All three accused are said to be residents of Mumbai, Maharashtra. These accused were interrogated by special teams of RPF throughout the night. Sources said that the accused have not been able to give satisfactory answers about the cash and gold. The accused have been handed over to the Income Tax Department team.
